The First Annual PopMech CinemaTech Awards

Forget the Oscars, with their staid awards like "best actor in a leading role." Mythbuster Adam Savage helps PM pick the winners of our first CinemaTech Awards, honoring the year's coolest movie vehicle, best alternate universe, most awesome explosion, and more.

Sci-Tech Movie of the Year: The Avengers

Sci-Tech Movie of the Year: The Avengers

We've seen everything in the superhero genre—from straight-up treatments like Superman and SpiderMan to the campy Batman Forever to the dark, moody versions of The Crow, Kick-Ass, and The Dark Knight saga. Given all that, it's stunning just how fresh The Avengers feels. Joss Whedon's tale of the reluctant team of Marvel Earth-savers manages to strike a balance that very few superhero films achieve: It's an epic, ripsnorting adventure that also feels quite personal and intimate. Whedon accomplishes this with a perfect eye for both big action and small interactions. Despite the electrifying computer graphics of animation director Marc Chu and the technical wizardry of VFX supervisor Jeff White, when Iron Man's Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and The Incredible Hulk's Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), the two most tortured souls in the group, strike up their unlikely friendship, you know you're in for something special. For an unproven movie director, Whedon delivered a pitch-perfect production, reinvigorating a mature genre along the way. Most surprising, this comic-book saga gets even better with repeated viewings.

Best Alternate Universe: The Hobbit

Best Alternate Universe: The Hobbit

When it comes to conjuring a new cosmos, it's hard to beat Peter Jackson. With his elite army of New Zealand filmmakers, he replicated J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth to an incredible degree in the three Lord of the Rings films. In The Hobbit, he has led us even deeper into that fantastical place. We have Orc kings, goblin hordes, and a wondrous look at the dwarves' lost kingdom, Erebor—all lovingly realized, from the swords and jewelry to the castles and countrysides. VFX guru Joe Letteri, a four-time Oscar winner, led the Weta Digital team that created the film's virtual landscapes and characters; Oscar-winning production designer Dan Hennah marshaled artists from disciplines as diverse as bookbinding and instrument-making to bring the story to life in exacting detail. Jackson, who converted the original set for Bilbo's Bag End home into a guest house, loves this world, and it shows